Henry James

Henry James (1843 - 1916) was an American author who was born in New York City. He was a son of theologian Henry James and brother of the famous psychologist and philosopher William James. He attained his education in New York, London England, Paris and Geneva. In 1875 he took residence in England and subsequently only returned to the United States for vacations. He became a British citizen in 1915. While in his early twenties Henry James contributed short stories and articles to American Periodicals. This resulted in the American author William Dean Howells encouraging him and introducing his works to the magazine The Atlantic Monthly. His work is characterized by leisurely pacing and subtle delineation of character rather than by dramatic incidents or complicated plots. His major works, highly sensitive examples of the objective psychological novel, describe the world of leisure and sophistication he grew to know intimately in England and Europe.
In Henry James' early novels he dealt with the impact of European culture on American traveling and living abroad. Examples of this phase, written between 1875 and 1881, are Roderick Hudson, Washington Square, Portrait of a Lady, and The American Daisy Miller. Next he explored the types and manners of English scenes, in The Tragic Muse, The Spoils of Poynton, and The Awkward Age, all written from 1889 to 1900. The last great novels by Henry James, written between 1901 and 1904, The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl, take up once again the issue of different views between Europeans and Americans. The later works of Henry James are generally work complex than his earlier works, and the later characters and scenes seem to only exist in the minds of other characters.
Henry James was a prolific author, and one or more of his books were published every year up to his death in 1916. The many other books and stories of Henry James include:
French Poets and Novelists - 1878
An International Episode - 1879
The Author of Beltraffio - 1885
The Bostonians - 1886
The Princess Casamassima - 1886
What Massie Knew - 1897
In The Cage - 1898
The Soft Side - 1900
The Sacred Fount - 1901
The Better Sort - 1903
The Finer Grain - 1910
The Outcry - 1911
A Small Boy and Others - 1913
Notes of a Son and Brother - 1914
Notes on Novelists - 1914



Further information on Henry James